1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data carrier, a game machine using the data carrier, an information communication method, an information communication system using the data carrier, automated travelling control system and storing medium, and more particularly, to a non-contact type data carrier, and above-mentioned various application using the non-contact type data carrier.
2. Description of the Background Art
Cards are known as devices for transmitting various items of information, and particularly a magnetic card having magnetic stripes is widely used.
There is utilized such a magnetic card formed with two magnetic stripes and incorporating two sets of functions corresponding to the two magnetic stripes. This is intended to provided the single magnetic card with the two sets of functions by differentiating the magnetic stripes read by a card reader with a change in inserting direction into the card reader. The above-mentioned two sets of functions may include an application of a variety of functions. For example, the single magnetic card can serve as a bank deposit card and a cashing card.
Thus, the magnetic card can be provided with the plurality of functions and has a storage capacity as small as several tens bytes, and there must be a limit in terms of quantity of data storable therein. Such being the case, there are proposed IC cards having a large storage capacity and incorporating the two sets of functions in, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication Nos. 3-142299(1991), 3-142293(1991), 1-304998(1989), 4-355190(1992), 4-199394(1992) and 5-342424(1993).
The non-contact type IC card is high in its manufacturing cost, and hence the cost is reduced generally by a repetitive use for a long period of time. The conventional IC cards proposed in the above Publications are of a contact type and therefore have a problem of being poor in terms of durability and disadvantageous in the number of usable times. To obviate this problem, it is considered that the non-contact type IC card is provided with a plurality of functions.
The IC card for mutually transmitting information with respect to the outside in a non-contact manner is also referred to as a non-contact ID tag, an RF (Radio Frequency Identification)-ID tag, a data tag and a non-contact type data carrier, etc. In the specification of the present invention which follows, however, a most general term "non-contact data carrier" shall be used in principle instead of the non-contact IC.
The non-contact type data carrier generates a DC internal power supply voltage by rectifying an alternate current generated by an electromagnetic induction from radio waves transmitted from the outside, and recognizes that the data carrier itself is called from a host device and then responds thereto.
For instance, as shown in FIG. 1, in a non-contact type data carrier system 800, an inquiry machine 802 is fixedly disposed, and a responder (tag) 801a is fitted to a moving body 801. The inquiry machine 802 transmits an inquiry signal radio wave (RF signal) generated by a transmitter/receiver 802b through an antenna 802a. The responder 801a entering a detectable range of the inquiry signal radio waves transmitted by the inquiry machine 802 obtains electric power by receiving the radio waves, and transmits information on an identification (ID) code stored inside as a response signal. The inquiry machine 802 receives this response signal through the antenna 802a, and an identification circuit 802c decodes the response signal and transmits the necessary information to a host computer 803. Then, the host computer 803 executes a variety of control processes by use of the information given from the inquiry machine 802.
The data carrier described above does not require a power supply such as a battery etc. and is, because of its being of the non-contact type, applied in a variety of fields such as a parking management system, an In-and-out management system, a domestic animal management system, a factory automation (FA) management system, and an automated ticket examining system etc.
An apparatus termed a "Tag Retrieving Apparatus" is disclosed in, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 7-182357, wherein a plurality of files are respectively provided with tags (data carriers), and the file information can be transmitted and received highly efficiently by a radio transmission.
Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 5-151428 discloses such a contrivance that the cards in a leisure facilities are provided with tags, whereby the users in a skiing ground and an amusement park can be easily managed.
On the other hand, there have hither to existed various kinds of on-board games such as a card game, chess and an Othello(TM) game etc, and a variety of proposals about how to collect the game information have been made. For instance, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 5-177056 discloses a "Dice Point Reading System", wherein the tag is embedded in the vicinity of the surface of each facet of the dice, thereby making it feasible to simultaneously read the points of a plurality of dices.
The on-board game like the chess and the Othello.TM. game, however, is played by moving a plurality of pieces on the game board. In the prior art, however, it is impossible to automatically record and control existing positions of the respective pieces on the game board with an advancement in the game.
For such an automated recording, there is proposed a contrivance in which the underside of the piece is formed with a protrusions and grooves different corresponding to the types of the pieces in order to distinguish between the pieces, and an identifying mechanism for identifying based on the grooves and the protrusions on the board surface is provided. This identifying mechanism, however, spoils an external appearance and a sense of touching, and becomes, because of being complicated and requiring a troublesome works, expensive. Further, this identifying mechanism uses a mechanical detection and is therefore insufficient in terms of a judging accuracy.
Moreover, the prior art game apparatus is, if a reading personnel and a referee etc. are needed in addition to the players, neither capable of recording and controlling the advancement in the game nor capable of freely setting the rules of the game. As a result, the players can play the game within only such a range that the number of players and rules for performing the game are predetermined. Furthermore, the price also becomes higher with the more complicated configuration of the game apparatus.
Moreover, there increase the applications of the non-contact type data carrier in the field of the data transmission except for the games. A quantity of the data to be dealt with is, however, limited in the prior art, and there is also a limit in terms of a method of transmitting and receiving the data.
Additionally, in the case of the non-contact type data carrier of the IC card type, the communications with the card reader are performed through radio waves, and hence the card reader is difficult to accurately recognize a positional relationship with respect to the surface and the underside of the IC card. Therefore it is difficult to incorporate a plurality of functions into the non-contact type IC card, corresponding to states of the surface and the underside of the card body.